


The Prickly Things

by hardboiledbaby



Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: M/M, Retirement
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-02
Updated: 2014-06-02
Packaged: 2018-02-03 02:11:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,798
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1727315
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hardboiledbaby/pseuds/hardboiledbaby
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Retiring to the country meant a life of ease and comfort, did it not?</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Prickly Things

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tweedisgood](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tweedisgood/gifts), [spacemutineer](https://archiveofourown.org/users/spacemutineer/gifts), [methylviolet10b](https://archiveofourown.org/users/methylviolet10b/gifts).



> Written in appreciation for the wonderful mods of the LJ acd_holmesfest comm.
> 
> My gratitude to the lovely Quoshara for her unfailing support. Thank you for the excellent suggestions xoxo 
> 
> Alas, the muse never leaves well enough alone, all errors subsequently introduced are my own.

_"What a lovely thing a rose is!" He walked past the couch to the open window, and held up the drooping stalk of a moss-rose, looking down at the dainty blend of crimson and green. It was a new phase of his character to me, for I had never before seen him show any keen interest in natural objects. "There is nothing in which deduction is so necessary as in religion," said he, leaning with his back against the shutters. "It can be built up as an exact science by the reasoner. Our highest assurance of the goodness of Providence seems to me to rest in the flowers. All other things, our powers our desires, our food, are all really necessary for our existence in the first instance. But this rose is an extra. Its smell and its color are an embellishment of life, not a condition of it. It is only goodness which gives extras, and so I say again that we have much to hope from the flowers."_

_—"The Adventure of the Naval Treaty"_  
  


Holmes was walking past the doorway of the kitchen when he caught sight of Watson, standing at the sink. The backside of his trousers were covered in mud. Holmes halted abruptly. "Watson! Good heavens—"

Watson spun around to face Holmes, his expression both surprised and sheepish. "Oh! You startled me."

Watson's shirt front was streaked with dirt as well, and torn in several places. He had his right sleeve rolled up, and his arm....

Holmes strode forward at once and gently took hold of Watson's wrist. His hand was swollen and his forearm was covered in scratches, some quite deep and bleeding. With a frown, Holmes led Watson to sit at the table, took the cloth out of Watson's other hand, and began tending to the cuts himself.

After a minute or so of silence, Watson cleared his throat and said, "I suppose you're wondering what I—"

"You were stung by one of my bees, tripped on the uneven paving stones, and fell in among the brambles. So much is obvious," Holmes interrupted with a touch of impatience. "What is not so obvious is what you were doing so far down the path." The particular stretch that led to the back field of their Sussex cottage had been in serious need of repair for several months, but since Holmes rarely ventured beyond the apiary and Watson no longer did much gardening, they had not paid it any mind. The flowers and shrubs had been left to grow wild, the blackberry bushes sneaking in and running riot amongst them. 

"I know, I know," Watson said ruefully. "I only meant to walk as far as the fence. But the moss roses were so lovely...." He smiled. "I wanted to pick some for you."

Holmes's hands faltered for a moment, then he cleared his throat and turned to rummage in a drawer for their medical supplies. "And you were stung and scratched for your troubles." He returned with a battered tin and resumed his ministrations, adjusting his spectacles and peering closely to ensure the stinger was not embedded and that the other wounds were free from debris. "I'm so sorry, old boy," he said as he spread the salve, keeping his touch and his tone as light as he was able. "No doubt you once supposed the country life to be one of ease and comfort. Instead you have surrounded yourself with the prickly things, I fear."

Watson chuckled, warm and rich in Holmes's ear as Holmes bent over his work of dressing and bandaging. "Ease and comfort! I did not suppose any such thing, nor would I have wanted such a life. Did you really imagine I would?"

"It is what you deserve," Holmes replied shortly. _What you could have had,_ he thought but did not say. 

"What I—" Watson began, then stopped. 

Holmes was applying sticking plasters on the smaller cuts when Watson's other hand came to rest upon Holmes's fingers, stilling them. Holmes looked up to find Watson watching him with a steady gaze.

"John—" 

There was a lifetime of devotion in those eyes, as clear and deeply blue as they had ever been, despite the wrinkles around them and the silvered hair above. Even after all these years, their power to steal his breath away was undiminished. 

"I have this," Watson said, lacing their fingers together. He pressed his lips to Holmes's hand. "I have you. More than I deserve, I daresay, but by God, you are mine, I love you, and I'm going to keep you." 

Then Watson was kissing him. The doctor kissed thoroughly and with great skill, bringing to bear an expertise gained on three continents, not to mention his own considerable natural talent for the activity. Any objection Holmes might have made to that declaration—and there was only one, really—dissolved under that heady onslaught. Which was just as well, for it was the one point on which they would never agree.

 

"I hope that's settled," Watson said, some time later. He tightened his arms around Holmes, shifting their positions so that they lay comfortably side by side, with Holmes's head pillowed on his good shoulder. "All on account of a few scratches. You utterly ridiculous man. If, after all this time, you cannot deduce how I feel about our life together, well." He huffed. "A fine detective you turned out to be. It's obvious that I have grossly overstated your abilities in my chronicles of your cases. I shall have to publish an open letter in _The Strand_ , abjectly apologising for perpetrating a deception of epic proportions upon its readership." 

"Well, in my defence, I _have_ been retired from active practise for well over a decade," Holmes offered hopefully.

Watson huffed again. "As if that signifies. Hardly an excuse. _Epic_ proportions, I tell you. Your adoring public will be aghast and inconsolable."

There was nothing for it, then.

"You are right, of course," Holmes said meekly. "I am duly chastised, and I throw myself upon your mercy. I'm sorry, dearest. Forgive me?"

Another huff, this one slightly more mollified. Holmes chanced a conciliatory kiss to Watson's right clavicle. A bandaged hand stroked along his side and Holmes smiled. He tucked his face into the crook of Watson's neck and closed his eyes.

He was beginning to drowse when Watson spoke, his tone thoughtful. "Holmes?" 

"Hmmm?"

"All joking aside, you truly do believe I still harbour regrets, don't you." Watson's was looking down at him, serious now, and frowning. 

Holmes hesitated, but he had already tempted fate—and Watson's temper—quite enough for one day. Prevarication was out of the question. He gave a slight nod and shrug, pressing the side of his face once more against the warm skin of Watson's pectoralis major. "You have never given me cause to doubt your love or your fidelity, not once. But regrets are… well, it would be only natural, would it not? Only human."

"And I am most assuredly human," Watson acknowledged. "As are you. Do _you_ have regrets?" 

All traces of sleepiness vanished as Holmes moved out of Watson's arms to sit upright. Watson pushed himself up to do the same, and they sat facing each other. The question hung in the air between them, waiting for an answer.

His chosen life's work of detecting crime and solving mysteries had been a rewarding profession, made infinitely more so by Watson's eager and stalwart presence at his side. Indeed, he could not begin to imagine any other path he might have followed for himself, but the sacrifices it demanded had been heavy and had inevitably taken their toll, both on him and on Watson.

The worst of it had been the separations: the three terrible years he had deliberately allowed Watson to mourn him as dead, the two he had spent abroad under uncertain and perilous circumstances in service to his country. Over the years, other leave-takings; shorter, necessary, but no less difficult. All of it precious time lost, never to be regained.

Then, too, there had been time lost of a different sort. He looked down at the puncture-marks on his left arm, scars from a battle against his own mind, a hell of his own devising. Glancing up, he saw a flash of pain in Watson's eyes at the memory of a game that had never been worth the candle.

Oh yes, he had regrets. 

But then the pained look was gone, replaced by one of quiet pride and triumph. For the scars were old and faded, merely the vestiges of that long-ago battle from which they had, finally, emerged victorious. A shared battle, a joint victory.

And that was the answer: there, in Watson's eyes. He should have realised.

"Not about us," Holmes said, and he knew it for the truth. He raised a hand to cup the beloved face. "I have no regrets about any action, large or small, that brought us here to this day, this place." Here, where they were all things to each other and their lives were filled with a contentment Holmes could never have deduced nor even imagined, not in a hundred years.

Watson favoured him with a smile, warm and affectionate—and with a hint of smugness. Given the circumstances, Holmes was inclined to allow it. 

"Nor I," he said. "I am not afraid of the prickly things, Holmes. Rose bushes have their thorns and bees their stingers, but look at what they give us: beautiful flowers and the sweetest honey." 

"'The goodness which gives extras.'" Holmes said.

"Ah," Watson said, his smile widening, "you remembered."

"Naturally. I said as much to your friend Phelps and his intended, Miss Harrison, did I not?" Holmes asked drily, and Watson snorted out a laugh.

Because Holmes, in fact, had _not_ said those words. Watson, bless his romantic soul and his pawky humour, had penned the words himself and attributed them to the detective in his published story of the Naval Treaty case, rather to Holmes's annoyance at the time.

Now, however, the words rang true in Holmes's ears, and in his heart: _The goodness which gives extras, the embellishment of life. John Hamish Watson is my assurance of the existence of Providence._

Aloud, he said, "Flowers and honey. Is that enough, John?"

"Flowers, honey, and you," Watson said simply. "Yes, Holmes. It is enough, and always will be." 

Tomorrow, they will go out together to check on the hives. Tomorrow, they will walk carefully down the rough path, defying the brambles to pick the roses. They will do these things for as many tomorrows as they have left.

But for now they will sleep, wrapped up in soft quilts and in each other, without a prickly thing in sight.

**Author's Note:**

> Also fills the DW fic_promptly prompt: ["bandaging wounds."](http://fic-promptly.dreamwidth.org/98949.html?thread=4573317#cmt4573317)


End file.
